Univ. of Pennsylvania Linguistics Department adds ASL/Deaf Studies Minor

[Mark A. Mandel]

Hip, hip, hooray!
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Mark A. Mandel
Linguistic Data Consortium
University of Pennsylvania

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Press release re ASL/Deaf Studies Minor from Linguistics Department
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:29:29 -0400
From: Gillian Sankoff <gsankoff at comcast.net>

The faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences today approved the first American Sign Language/Deaf Studies minor in the Ivy League. The purpose of the minor is to guide students in developing both competence in ASL and an understanding of its linguistic characteristics, particularly its close connection to spoken languages. Over the past generation, linguists have carried out a large number of studies that confirm a fundamental fact: the sign languages of the deaf are full human languages that share the basic grammatical and cognitive properties of spoken languages, despite the radical difference in the mode of transmission of their linguistic signals. Understanding this basic principle has opened exciting avenues for research and academic exploration in the fields of linguistics and deaf studies which the new minor aims to make more accessible to students. The Department of Linguistics is pleased to be able to offer this opportunity for students to expand their academic exp
 loration of sign language with this new course of study.